Pigeons and Stars
by signedvalentine
Summary: Just a drabbly one shot leading up to the story I will be doing. This is a little DarylxOC, with my OC, Pigeon. Pigeon is feeling down about a certain feature of hers, and Daryl is sad that she can't see how beautiful she is- even if Pigeon's beauty is pretty unconventional. Mostly Hurt/Comfort, with a little romance and angst. Rated T for language, but actual story will be M.


**Yay for my first published work! This will accompany a story I'm doing next- with my two OCs, Pigeon and Stargirl. In the story there will be Daryl/OC/Merle action and then some plain Daryl/OC and Merle/OC. THIS WILL NOT BE AN ACTUAL CHAPTER. It will just be like a separate sceen, simply because I was feeling down and I knew writing some Daryl/Pigeon would cheer me right up.**

**So this is my first published work. Please, please, please review! I need all the help I can get! This isn't very long, or my best writing, but I would love for you to check it out, and the story I'm working on. (First chapter should be up in a week, it will be called [probably] Pigeons in Paris.) I would absolutely adore some (constructive, please) critiscim, on both this and my story. Thank you all for reading! **

**-signedvalentine**

There were many beautiful people in the world. Daryl Dixon had met some of them. But none of them had ever been as striking as her.

She wasn't conventional beauty. She was tall and slim, with just enough curves, and a skinny waist. She had long arms and long legs and was borderline gangly. Her neck was long like a ballerina's.

Her face was oval shaped, but with a strong jaw. Her cheekbones were high and hollow, almost gaunt. Her nose was long and straight and small. Her eyes were large and a light brown color. Her hair fell an inch or two past her collarbones, and was a dusty brown.

Her skin was lightly tanned, and mostly clear of blemishes. A scar stretched down one side of her face, from her eyebrow to her jaw line. It was faded, but you could still clearly see it.

In fact, she was so far from conventional beauty you could call her ugly, and you couldn't be wrong. But there was something about her. Her face was striking, and she was probably the prettiest ugly girl you'd ever see, and Daryl Dixon liked that.

And her name was Pigeon. She was named after a French scooter. Daryl Dixon liked that, too.

She had a dog named Ferret, because when she was little he saved her from one. Daryl Dixon wasn't sure what to make of that.

She almost always went barefoot, and her feet were as hard as leather. Daryl Dixon wasn't sure what to make of that, either, but he was pretty sure he liked it, too.

There was a lot of things that Daryl Dixon liked about Pigeon.

He liked it when:

-she sang, because her voice was really nice and he'd never actually say that to her face because he wasn't really sure if she knew he'd ever heard her sing before so it might be weird but she had a really nice voice that was kind of light and airy

-she spoke, because her voice could change a lot. She could talk real mean, with her voice all sharp like his favorite hunting knife. She could talk all sad and bitter, with her voice all tired and worn out and resentful and upset. She could talk happy, and she'd sound like she'd just kissed the sun. But Daryl liked her voice most when she was just talking, because she always said each word real careful, like she was worried something could just come tumbling out.

-she laughed, because her laugh sounded like a T.V laugh, which was kind of weird to hear in person. Also, when she laughed her cheeks puffed up and her big eyes got all squinty, and it was cute. But he'd never tell her that.

-said his name. She didn't say it like Merle did, or how anyone else did. She said it all sharp around the edges, but if she was feeling happy it'd be all soft in the middle. And he loved to hear her say his name, because it was a name just for him, and she said it in a way just for him.

-really when she just did anything, because there was a certain steadiness to her that made Daryl all sad and happy at the same time. She reminded him of when he was real little and his momma would be singing in the living room, dancing around to an old record. And her eyes would be sad but her voice would be happy, and that was as good as it'd get. Soon his dad would be home and she'd just be quiet and sad, but it was fine, because his momma was always real steady and real certain.

But Daryl didn't like when she:

-was sad. Because he'd look at her, and he'd see someone who was trying to smile through a wave of tears. She was fooling no one, not even herself anymore. She was falling apart, too, and so he'd just watch her fall apart, because he couldn't trust himself comforting her. She'd just fall apart, and without any help, she'd get back up and pick up the pieces of herself. She'd smile a little hopeless smile that told everyone she was okay. And no one really cared, and Daryl doubted she cared herself. (Well, he cared, but he wouldn't tell her that either.)

-was angry. When she was angry it was dangerous just to be around her. She'd get into such a state it'd be hard to calm her down. In fact, it was best just to wait it out, or be relentlessly berated about her thinking that he thought she was overreacting, even if he was just worried she'd kill herself, waving her pistol around, or a knife, or whatever dangerous item was closest.

-was with Merle. Because Merle thought she was a helluva a girl and she really was and it wasn't fair, because Daryl didn't want to take anything from Merle. But Daryl also couldn't help but feel like he'd be better for her than Merle. And Daryl also couldn't help but feel real angry and jealous and sad when she smiled at Merle, or when she hugged him, or when they laughed together.

But it was actually kind of funny, because when Daryl thought of all the things he liked and all the things he didn't like, he couldn't help but feel it was worth it.

But he was stupid, he told himself, because none of that mattered anymore.

Daryl Dixon didn't grow up with a good family. His momma died when he was six, and when Merle was seventeen. His dad was a druggie and a drunk, and Merle become one, too. His brother was in and out of juvie before he finally left for the army. He got kicked out, though, in a dishonorable discharge.

Daryl laughed, because he couldn't think of a damn thing Merle had ever done that was actually honorable.

And then Daryl stopped laughing, because, come to think of it, he couldn't think of a damn thing he'd ever done that was actually honorable.

But then he started laughing again, because, with his mother being the exception, he didn't think there was a damn thing any Dixon had ever done that was honorable.

Pigeon didn't have a good family either.

Daryl asked her about it many times before she told him anything. Daryl thought their relationship, if one could call it that, was really heading nowhere, seeing as they were both thickheaded and didn't like to talk.

Her daddy had first seen her momma cruising the streets of Paris on a Silver Pigeon scooter. Her daddy wanted to be an archaeologist. Daryl didn't have the faintest of what they did till she told him they dug up old things in the ground to discover about the people who used to live there.

Her momma, on the other hand, wanted to be an astronaut. She'd spend hours looking up at the stars, and as a result, Pigeon knew all the constellations.

Her daddy met her momma at a cafe as she pulled up on her Silver Pigeon, and they hit it off. Two years later they were married, and another year later they had a kid.

It was a girl, and they named her Stargirl. When Daryl heard this he burst out laughing, because he couldn't think of naming someone Stargirl. Pigeon had gotten very huffy and upset and refused to tell him anymore for a week.

It turned out they named her Stargirl because that's what their father always called their mother. They liked it so much they named her it, and two years later, they had another girl. They called her Pigeon, because of the scooter her mother had been riding when the two first met.

Daryl recalled that, for a second, he forgot where he was, and he had wanted to meet her parents- just to see what they were like. But then he remembered, and realized they were dead.

They had gotten a divorce, though. When Daryl asked why, Pigeon started laughing and told him her father was too busy looking at the ground and her mother too busy looking at the sky to have any sort of family.

She was ten when they got the divorce. A year later, her mother was riding her scooter when she crashed and died.

When Pigeon turned seventeen, the dead began to walk. Her father was bitten first.

Stargirl killed him, because he was going to bite Pigeon. Pigeon, Stargirl, and Ferret- Pigeon's pit bull- then set out to get to Atlanta, from their farm in the countryside of New York.

They'd gotten to the city when a sudden walker attack had split them up.

And then Daryl went and found Pigeon and Ferret, and Merle, taking one look at the seventeen year old girl, who wasn't even legal, ignored all of society's rules and immediately decided he wanted to keep her- Daryl was pretty sure what for.

But it turned out that Pigeon was pretty handy with a pistol, and it seemed as though Merle was content with just watching, not touching.

Daryl was glad.

Because Pigeon wasn't like the girls at home.

There were a lot of differences, but the main one being Daryl truly, honestly liked her.

He just wished that Pigeon liked Pigeon, too.

There were a lot of scars on her arms, and every day there were new ones. One time he asked her where the scar on her face had come from, because he was worried that it was self inflicted. She'd burst into tears and ran away.

Pigeon was not a conventional beauty, but she was a damned beauty, for sure. It was too bad she couldn't see through a scar.

Daryl could.

The scar was a burn scar. When she was younger, 16, someone sprayed her with battery acid- the person was never caught. The doctors did skin grafts from her legs, and sealed the wound enough so it would only leave a scar down the side of her face, only an ⅛ of an inch wide.

Daryl didn't mind scars.

She was sitting on the ground in a white sundress that just reached her knees. Her knees were scraped and bloody, and her long legs stretched out in front of her, and her long arms tugged at the sides of her dress. Ferret had his head in her lap, but she didn't seem to notice.

It was dusk, and stars were beginning to show.

Daryl sat down next to her, and she glanced at him for a second, but her brown eyes almost instantly returned to the stars.

"You know what, Daryl?"

Daryl grunted.

"Isn't it amazing to think that those tiny pinpricks of light, no bigger than your pinky nail, are actually giant stars, that are on fire? Literally burning up out there."

Daryl grunted again.

"It makes me feel very small."

Daryl looked at her.

"I'd like to be a star, I think."

Daryl shrugged, and then said, "I think I'd like to be a star, too."

Stars didn't have a lot of trouble, it seemed.

Pigeon seemed to agree with his unspoken thought, as she said, seemingly careless, "Stars are very beautiful, too. Even the ugliest star is more pretty than anything I've ever seen before."

Daryl was unsure how giant, flaming balls of gas could be prettier than anything she'd ever seen before, but he had to agree that from far away, stars sure were pretty.

"Y'know, Daryl, I think that if Stargirl died, she'd just become a star. I think I'd just be a pigeon," she said sadly.

Daryl chuckled. "I reckon there are lotsa purty pigde'ons e'rywhere."

Pigeon shrugged and pushed hair over the left side of her face, the side Daryl was sitting on. He sighed in a sort of sad way, because he was sure if she was a pigeon she'd be the prettiest damn bird to ever walk the earth.

He leaned over and pushed her hair back behind her ear. In the starlight, her scar glowed silver.

She turned to look at him, and her hair shined silver, and her eyes were pools of starlight.

Daryl Dixon's mouth nearly dropped into a surprised 'o'.

Pigeon stood, and her dress fanned out around her, glowing. The light from behind her made it as though she was outlined in stars, and Daryl Dixon stood up as well.

Her scar shone as bright as her eyes, and he smiled.

He was only pretty sure that Pigeon was turning into stars- but Daryl Dixon was sure that Pigeon was beautiful.

And, in that moment, her body shining in silver and with stars falling into her hair and melting in warm brown eyes, scar or no scar, she was.


End file.
